


The Crowning Battle

by charleybradburies



Series: SkyeWard Week 2015 [7]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst and Romance, Angst and Tragedy, Angst with a Happy Ending, Awkwardness, Canon Character of Color, Canon Het Relationship, Canon Related, Canon-Typical Violence, Changing Tenses, Character Death, Community: 1_million_words, Engagement, F/M, Family, Family Drama, Family Feels, Father Figures, Father-Daughter Relationship, Future, Future Fic, Grant Ward Redemption, Happy Ending, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Inhumans (Marvel), Marriage Proposal, Movie Reference, Multi-Era, Non-Linear Narrative, Not Canon Compliant, One Shot, POV Character of Color, POV Female Character, POV Multiple, POV Outsider, Past Tense, Present Tense, Prophecy, Prophetic Visions, Psychic Abilities, Redemption, References to Canon, Requited Love, Skyeward Week, Spies & Secret Agents, Story within a Story, Storytelling, Team Dynamics, Team as Family, Timelines, Tragedy, Tragic Romance, Video, Weddings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-25
Updated: 2015-05-25
Packaged: 2018-04-01 03:24:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4003987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/charleybradburies/pseuds/charleybradburies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A group of Inhumans are on a plane that crashes, and it's a few days before SHIELD can even find them, let alone rescue them. But Cal's just seen the amazing young woman his daughter's become, and he's just lost the love of his life to a war she'd started, and his leg is damaged from the crash, so he decides that bleeding out is a better option than continuing to take up precious resources and limit his companions' chances of survival and health - so in the middle of the night he starts unwrapping the makeshift bandage around his leg, only to find that Raina is still awake. She tries to stop him, but ultimately lets him decide for himself, agreeing to stay with him and to fulfill one very particular request of his: to See whether his daughter finds love.</p><div class="center">
  <p>
    <br/>
    <b>heavy is the head that wears the crown / don't the greatness get you down</b>
  </p>
  <p> </p>
  <p>SkyeWard Week Day Seven: Favorite Emo(sh)tional Moment</p>
</div>
            </blockquote>





	The Crowning Battle

**Author's Note:**

> The title and lyrics in summary are from Katy Perry's 'Who Am I Living For' which is an amazing song and there is an [even more amazing Skye fanvid](https://youtu.be/-qsdDux3j4k) to this song which you should definitely watch. No pressure. But seriously.
> 
> Thanks for reading!!! The way I wrote this was a totally new and different idea than how I usually write but I hope it's still enjoyable even if a little weird. Maybe just imagine Raina doing her ~wistful Raina~ thing? 
> 
> Comments, etc. will be greatly appreciated :)
> 
> SkyeWard Week is over, but there's still more SkyeWard to come, I promise. It's been real, friends. It's been real. <3

"We managed to repair enough of the security footage from the jet to get something of a picture of the time period from when it crashed to when they were rescued," Maria relates slowly, feeling oddly personally connected to the self-sacrificing man who, in all likelihood, had saved the rest of the people, the Inhumans, who had been on board his crashed plane with him.

+

"...he started to unwrap the shirt sleeve that had been made into a makeshift bandage for his leg the day of the crash, knowing that he'd start to bleed even more. Raina, the only other...person awake to see him, protested, telling him that he should stay alive, but he insisted that the rest of them would have a better chance to live if he stopped using their provisions, so eventually she settled for offering simply to stay with him until he bled out, to help him through the suffering. So, _naturally,_ as any dying man would have done, he asked to be told a story."

"Excuse me?" Melinda interjects, eyebrows raised.

"Yeah, a story. That's what she does, isn't it?" Maria replies.

"Could have sworn her specialty was flirting," Jemma says, bitter as the coffee she's sipping, and May quickly nods her own assent. 

"Not the point, though. The point is that _this_ followed," Maria declares, bringing the footage up and waiting for the tech assistant to go to the relevant point in time.

"Please, Raina, tell me: my daughter, my Daisy, my - my Skye - does she find someone who loves her as he should someday, someone she marries and is cherished by? Does she _get_ to have that?"

* * *

They'll be sitting in a couch square when it happens: a couch square at midnight on a rainy night. The evening will have been cool and windy, with the weather having worsened by the time dinner's ended and the team disperses. He'll lounge back on a couch and stretch only for her to collapse down on top of him with enough force to make him grunt, but he'll laugh with a hand on his chest, more than charmed regardless. 

She'll pull out one of the books she's reading at the time, and it won't matter to him which, because she's laying with him and reading aloud, wistful and excited and angry, and he could listen to her read the damn dictionary for all he cared, as long as he got to feel the vibrations of her voice echoing through his body. Of course, he gets to fall asleep with the warmth of her form against him in bed, with her head upon or spine against his chest, but the whole reason he's even thinking about what he'll do tonight is that it's not enough. There's never enough, never, and though he's sure there won't ever be, he knows with absolute certainty that his preference for death above continuing a life that she wasn't part of was immense. 

He'd managed to deny that before, but she's always been a weakness of his, ever since they'd met, and every day only pushes his need to a new Skye-high limit; he'll have long since given up on denying them both the sort of partnership he'd once forced himself to regard as a reckless luxury. He'll have known for a long time before this night that it's been love, _real_ love, the kind that's true and transcendent and can pull a man, even a man as far gone as he'd once thought himself, back from darkness into light. And he'll think of that light often, because _she'll_ be his light. The center of his entire world who, ironically like the _actual_ center of the world, can melt him as though it were entirely second nature. 

It's sort of a classic story, in that way: a bona fide tough guy who thinks so little of himself you just have to wonder how he's even stayed alive, falling flat on his face for a girl whose smile could be bottled up and used as artificial sunshine, but who forces him into acknowledging and growing into his own humanity. 

But they'll be _more_ than that, oh, Cal, _so_ much more. She'll be a leader, a _magnificent_ one, and he'll be as loyal as partners come, in every way that someone can.

She'll be stretching up above their heads that night, having finished the book she'd picked up that evening, when he decides that he's got the nerve. Even though the long-term will have been mentioned, she'll have left it up to him - not for any antiquated reasons, but because he'll have had to learn first that he's worthy of love, worthy of her love, sublime love, and she refuses to rush. They'll have been to the brink of death and back too many times for her to need a ring or a certificate to prove to anyone, let alone herself, the way that he feels about her, that they feel about each other.

She'll think he's trying to tickle her at first, when he sits up, knocking her off center, but wrapping his arms around her tightly so that she stays on the couch with him - but then he'll move her so that they're sitting next to each other, and she'll start to get confused. He'll fumble over himself when he says that he's got a present for her and then leaves, and she'll be giving him a strange and skeptical look when he seems to come back with nothing but a hearty helping of anxiety.

She'll try to comfort him, even though she doesn't know why he's nervous, and he'll refuse the help by simply kissing her, and yes, they'll get carried away with themselves for a while, but eventually he'll remember what he'd planned to do, and slowly make his kisses more gentle until he can convince himself to actually pull away.

He'll recall, and then remind her of, an important moment in their story: when they'd been sitting just like they are then, when he'd professed to her that he didn't believe himself a good man, and she'd challenged him saying that he was, and then they'd had a particularly emotional kiss. When they talk about it, he'll compare that moment to how they are then, how far they'll have come, how he's too full of love for there to be any space _left_ to hate himself. He'll tell her how she's saved him, in every way that a person can be saved...okay, that was badly phrased, sorry, but it'll be true, really. And he'll tell her how lucky he is and how he can't live without her, and they'll both cry. She'll say that he should stop talking and just keep kissing her before he turns their whole conversation into a cliché, and he'll apologize for having to disappoint, and it'll be then that he'll get the ring out, and she'll be totally speechless before she's even taken a look at it.

Seeing her smile, he'll be speechless, too, and she'll speak first, teasingly choking out "well, let's see just how well you did at guessing my ring size."

He'll have done well, and they'll both stay so giddy about the whole thing that eventually Coulson figures that something sketchy's going on, with all the laughter emanating from the room. Skye, of course, will be the one to tell him to chill out, and he'll notice the ring on his own; once he points it out she'll rush at him for a hug and Coulson will hold her tight and give her a kiss at her hairline, and tell him that he'd better not do anything really stupid again, or he'll give anyone on the team total immunity for shooting him. 

Coulson will turn to leave, though, saying he needs some processing time, and Skye will hold him back a moment to ask him if he'll walk her down the aisle, which he will, proudly, and she'll be, well, _supernaturally_ beautiful. Agents Simmons and Morse will be in lavender, and May in silver, and Agent Hunter will give a vaguely threatening toast, but when Ward himself stands up, he'll call that day the best day of his life so far and the first day of the rest of his life, and say with a massive smile that he knows he'll have a good one from then on out, because Skye will be with him. Hunter will joke that he's getting ahead of himself, but they'll all be happy, they will - and they'll stay that way...happy.

* * *

Maria waits for their responses: Jemma's speechless, but eventually May speaks.

"I don't know what I expected, but it _wasn't_ that."


End file.
